The Department of Justice announced Monday it had recovered $2.3 million in ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline.
The update comes about a month after the Colonial Pipeline briefly shut down following a ransomware attack bu DarkSide, which infected its business networks. Colonial is a major gasoline supplier to the East Coast, and the shutdown spurred fears of a gas shortage.
The announcement is compelling, as the public and private sector alike struggle to manage the response to a recent surge of ransomware attacks. More frequent recovery of funds after a ransom payment could shift the risk dynamic associated with these attacks for the business community, while also removing the payoff for attackers.
“Today we deprived a cybercriminal enterprise of the object of their activity, their financial proceeds and funding,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate at a press conference announcing the recovery. “For financially motivated cybercriminals, especially those presumably located overseas, cutting off access to revenue is one of the most impactful consequences we can pose.”
The recovered funds totaled 63.7 bitcoin out of the 75 bitcoin originally paid. In terms. of bitcoin, that’s 8 ..
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